Alberto E. Rodriguez, Getty Images
Go to a Kenny Loggins concert today, and chances are you'll hear the chart-busting movie hit 'Danger Zone.' But during the first US-Iraq skirmish in the early '90s, Loggins stopped playing the song, upset that it had been associated with military action.
"Back then CNN was using it as background music for the bombing of Baghdad, and it turned my stomach," Loggins tells Spinner. "So, I didn't perform the song for quite a while."
Of course, the song had already been associated with the military, having been famously used in the fighter pilot flick 'Top Gun' with Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer. Because of that, it became associated with real-life fighter pilots during the Gulf War a few years later. While that displeased Loggins, he eventually decided the up-tempo song was crucial to his act, so he paired the tune with extreme sports videos during concerts, hoping to establish a new association.
"At least it reinvented it for me so it didn't have to be about the war any more in my imagination," says Loggins, who is currently touring solo and working on an album with Richard Marx.
Not only was 'Danger Zone' a huge commercial hit, it also marked an important phase in Loggins' career. After initial success with Loggins and Messina, he hit his peak as a solo act largely due to his work on movie soundtracks.
"I was fortunate enough to be one of the first pop artists to be invited to write music for movies," he says.
His first movie hit was 'I'm All Right,' used in the 1980 comedy 'Caddyshack.' Then came the No. 1 hit 'Footloose,' the title track from the Kevin Bacon movie in 1984.
